Family too scared to live in house of horror

The family that agreed to pay $800,000 for 6 Collins Street, North Ryde was not told their dream home had remained unoccupied for three years because Sef Gonzales had murdered his family there.

Agents from L.J. Hooker did not tell Ellen Lin and Derek Kwok that the student had stabbed his sister, Clodine, with a kitchen knife, bashed her with a baseball bat and strangled her.

Nor did the agent reveal that Gonzales had struggled with his mother, Mary Loiva, and slashed her throat, then waited for father, Teddy, to return from work, knifing him in the back as he walked through the front door and killing him by stabbing him repeatedly in the chest.

Only now do the couple know that their new house is where Sef Gonzales sprayed "F--- off Asians KKK" on the wall as a decoy for police - and that he had partied, placed a deposit on a Porsche and waited in vain for his inheritance to arrive.

The couple never imagined that the murders they had heard about took place in their new home. They said they inspected the house three times with agents from L.J. Hooker, North Ryde, but were never told.

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It was only after Gonzales was sentenced last month to three life terms imprisonment that they read about their mistake in a Sydney newspaper - under the heading, "Sef's death house sold".

They had bought the house on August 31 and planned to live there with their three-year-old son, Clement.

The move now would be impossible, Ms Lin said yesterday. "I feel terrified. After I heard that, I have not even gone there once."

Settlement is due on Tuesday but the couple will not be buying the house. That the agent did not disclose its history is likely to cost them a deposit of $80,000.

Ms Lin said she had declined an offer from the agents to sell the house to someone else who did not know its history.

"You imagine the ones already dead are just sitting beside you," Mr Kwok said. He is sickened by the thought of his son playing in the backyard, believing that Gonzales had planted poisoned seeds there in the hope his mother might eat the plants.

Agents from L.J. Hooker at North Ryde did not return phone calls from the Herald yesterday.

The national president of the Real Estate Institute, Kareena Ballard, said there was no legal obligation to disclose a house's history and the ethical question was difficult.

"I suppose a murder is something between the people living in that property. I guess it leaves a bad taste for the people moving in but are they going to be murdered? I don't think so."

Ms Ballard said an exorcist had resolved a similar case she encountered in Perth . "They got exorcists in and were quite comfortable after that."

Ian Wells, the agent who sold the Hobart house of the Port Arthur murderer Martin Bryant, said he told purchasers of the house's history because it was topical but ethical obligations would abate with time.

"Most Australians probably wouldn't mind," he said, noting that many old homes dated to the time of bushrangers where atrocities had occurred.

Neil Jenman, real estate author and consumer activist, said it was an outrage that the agents' defence of caveat emptor - buyer beware - required them to disclose termites but not a bloody family murder.

"Clearly the agent is responsible. We're not talking about mollycoddling consumers, but protecting them from deceit."